Ezra Miller: 'I'm Queer'

Ezra Miller wowed audiences last year as Tilda Swinton's disturbed son in We Need to Talk About Kevin. Now, with his role as Patrick, an out-and-proud gay high schooler, in this fall's The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Miller's surely going to have the boys (and girls) in love with him. The 19-year-old actor was photographed for the cover of Out's September issue along with his co-stars Logan Lerman and Johnny Simmons. He spoke candidly with Shana Naomi Krochmal about the themes of the film and how they related to his own experiences growing up.

“I’m queer,” he says, simply. “I have a lot of really wonderful friends who are of very different sexes and genders. I am very much in love with no one in particular. I’ve been trying to figure out relationships, you know? I don’t know if it’s responsible for kids of my age to be so aggressively pursuing monogamous binds, because I don’t think we’re ready for them. The romanticism within our culture dictates that that’s what you’re supposed to be looking for. Then [when] we find what we think is love -- even if it is love -- we do not yet have the tools. I do feel that it’s possible to be at this age unintentionally hurtful, just by being irresponsible -- which is fine. I’m super down with being irresponsible. I’m just trying to make sure my lack of responsibility no longer hurts people. That’s where I’m at in the boyfriend/girlfriend/zefriend type of question.”

Miller explains that he was mocked as a kid for having a speech impediment. Then he had a life-changing experience. “I was trying to kiss boys in school,” he says, and then the best friend he fooled around with turned on him. “He had some macho realization that led him to believe that I was the problem. So I went from having a stutter to being a totally gay little opera singer to being, like, a really confused queer adolescent.”